Eleven Days from Horeb

(Exodus 15:2) "This is my God and I will extol Him": R. Eliezer says: Whence is it derived that a maid-servant beheld at the Red Sea what was not beheld by Ezekiel and the other prophets, of whom it is written (Hoshea 12:11) "And to the prophets I appeared (in various) guises," and (Ezekiel 1:1) "The heavens opened and I saw visions of G d"? An analogy: A king of flesh and blood comes to a province, a circle of guards around him, warriors at his right and at his left, armies before him and behind him — and all asking "Who is the king?" For he is flesh and blood as they are. But when the Holy One was revealed at the sea, there was no need for anyone to ask "Who is the King?" For when they saw Him, they knew Him, and they all opened and said "This is my God, and I will extol Him ("ve'anvehu," lit.:

(1) These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.—Through the wilderness, in the Arabah near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab, (2) it is eleven days from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by the Mount Seir route. — (3) It was in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses addressed the Israelites in accordance with the instructions that ה' had given him for them, (4) after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth [and] Edrei. (5) On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this Teaching. He said: (6) Our God ה' spoke to us at Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough at this mountain.

[Omission: Abba Yossi ben Yochanan of Yanuch says on behalf of Abba Cohen Bardela: If Israel had merited, as soon as their feet came up from the sea, they would have entered the land, as it is said, "The wicked shall come up immediately as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you." Another explanation: Eleven days from Horeb, Moses said to Israel: One of the ten things you received and transgressed is the cause for you, and which is it? "You shall have no other gods before Me," and you made the Golden Calf].

אחד עשר יום מחרב ELEVEN DAYS JOURNEY FROM HOREB — Moses said to them: “See what you brought about! There is no route from Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea as short as the way through Mount Seir, and even that is a journey of eleven days. You, however, traversed it in three days!” — for you see that they journeyed from Horeb on the twentieth of Eyar, as it is said, (Numbers 10:11—12) “And it came to pass in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth of the month, [the cloud went up and the children of Israel journeyed out of the desert of Sinai” (which is Horeb)] and on the twenty-ninth of Sivan they sent out the spies from Kadesh Barnea, (an interval of 40 days; cf. Taanit 29a); deduct from these the thirty days they spent at Kibroth Hataavah, where they ate the flesh “a month of days”, and seven days they spent at Hazeroth for Miriam to be shut up there as a leper, it follows that in three days they traversed all that way. —

To such an extent did the Shechinah exert itself to hasten your coming to the land of Canaan, but because you became degenerate, He made you travel round about Mount Seir for forty years (Sifrei Devarim 2:2).

Eleven days from Horeb and so on, ...

if Israel had merited the eleven days, they would have entered the land. But because they spoiled their deeds, the Omnipresent rolled the Torah scroll with them for forty days, forty years in the wilderness, as it is said (Numbers 14:34) "According to the number of days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year."

IT IS ELEVEN DAYS’ JOURNEY BY THE WAY OF SEIR UNTO KADESH-BARNEA. The meaning thereof is that Scripture informs us of the vastness of the wilderness, that from Horeb, which they left, to Kadesh-barnea is a journey of only eleven days, since by way of Mount Seir it is near. Kadesh-barnea is at the end of the wilderness at the border of the hill-country of the Amorites which is the inheritance of Israel. There are the lands of Sihon and Og where Moses explained the Torah in the valley over against Beth-peor. Afterwards Scripture says, they went by way of the mountain of the Amorites all that great and fearful wilderness, and, following that, it narrates that in Kadesh-barnea, which is at the boundary of their inheritance, they requested spies [to see the Land]. As a result, their journey was disrupted and they went [into the wilderness] toward the Red Sea — backward and not forward — until the completion of forty years. And because Israel was presently not in the wilderness, since they had already entered the land of Moab, earlier mentioned [i.e., the part which they took from Sihon and Og], Onkelos interpreted the expression in the wilderness, in the plain [These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan ‘in the wilderness, in the plain’] as being allusions to reproof [thus rendering: he reproved them “on account of that which they provoked Him in the wilderness, etc.”]. Moreover, why should Scripture mention all these places [in the wilderness, in the plain, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab] and specify signs and borders more than [the law requires] in selling a field! [Therefore these place-names were interpreted by Onkelos as being allusions to certain deeds about which Moses reproved them.] And the sense of the Scripture according to Onkelos’ opinion is: “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan; he spoke of [that which they did] in the wilderness, in the plain, and over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zahab, and the eleven days’ journey from Horeb,” because he mentioned to them all that they had done in these places. Afterwards Scripture states that there, beyond the previously mentioned Jordan,

Moses wanted to explain the Torah after he reproved them, and he spoke and said, The Eternal our G-d spoke unto us in Horeb, saying. And so it is interpreted in the Sifre according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah. Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskis, however, holds that they were actual places called by these names.

בעבר הירדן בארץ מואב הואיל משה באר, seeing that they were no longer moving around all the time, for the encampment in the steppes near Moav was their last stop before crossing the Jordan. Now, seeing that Moses himself had already given up hope of personally crossing the river Jordan he began to explain the parts of the Torah concerning which he thought some doubts could arise after his death. He did this by starting with a reminder of the covenant concluded between Israel and God at Mount Chorev. (compare 5,2) לאמר, before beginning with reviewing portions of the Torah, Moses explained the reason for the need to do this as being that they were about to cross into what would become their homeland where many commandments of the Torah would apply for the first time. Seeing that he could not do this at the time when they actually applied already, he had to do this now before his death. While on the subject, Moses reminded the people how, indirectly, due to their sinful conduct he was now unable to cross the Jordan with them, and that as a result he wanted to make sure that they would not again become guilty of such sinful behaviour.

Abraham spoke up, saying, “Here I venture to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes:

TOOK MOSES UPON HIM TO EXPLAIN. Ho’il (took upon himself) and be’er (to explain) are two verbs in the perfect attached to each other without a connective vav. We find the same in chamak avar (had turned away, and was gone) (Cant. 5:6). Look! Moses began to explain to the children who were born in the wilderness what happened to their fathers. He related to them all the commandments. They would also hear from the mouth of the faithful messenger the Ten Statements which their fathers heard from God.

(Deut. 1:1:) The mouth that said (in Exod. 4:10): I AM NOT A MAN OF WORDS, <then> said (in Deut. 1:1): THESE ARE THE WORDS. The prophet also cries out and says (in Is. 35:6): THEN THE LAME SHALL LEAP LIKE A HART, AND THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL SHOUT FOR JOY. Why? (Ibid., cont.:) BECAUSE WATERS SHALL BREAK FORTH IN THE WILDERNESS AND STREAMS IN THE DESERT. It is therefore stated (in Deut. 1:1): THESE ARE THE WORDS.

Thus it is to be found that there were three kinds of stones, one was that which Moses erected on this side of the Jordan, as it is said (Deut. 1, 5) And this side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to explain this law and it is said further, (Ib. 27, 8) And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of Ba'er [to explain], and we infer through analogy applying the similar word Ba'er used in both places. Another kind of stone was that which Joshua set up in the Jordan, as it is said (Josh. 4, 9) Twelve stones also did Joshua set up in the midst of the Jordan; and the third are the stones which Joshua set up in Gilgal, as it is said (Ib., ib., 20) And those twelve stones, which they had taken out of the Jordan, did Joshua set up in Gilgal.

(7) but that it was you who saw with your own eyes all the marvelous deeds that ה' performed. (8) Keep, therefore, all the Instruction that I enjoin upon you today, so that you may have the strength to enter and take possession of the land that you are about to cross into and possess, (9) and that you may long endure upon the soil that ה' swore to your fathers to assign to them and to their heirs, a land flowing with milk and honey. ...

(16) Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. (17) For יהוה’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that ה' is assigning to you.